Innacuracies exposed in Micheal Moores new film
commentator | 09.07.2004 09:53
Fahrenheit Fact no. 32: Blacks under-represented in voter-removals in Florida
One of Moore's favorite themes is to play up what he claims is a conspiracy by Katherine Harris and Jeb Bush to rig the election in Florida. From the film: NARRATOR: Second, make sure the chairman of your campaign is also the vote count woman. And that her state has hired a company that's gonna knock voters off the roles who aren't likely to vote for you. You can usually tell 'em by the color of their skin.
One of Moore's favorite themes is to play up what he claims is a conspiracy by Katherine Harris and Jeb Bush to rig the election in Florida. From the film: NARRATOR: Second, make sure the chairman of your campaign is also the vote count woman. And that her state has hired a company that's gonna knock voters off the roles who aren't likely to vote for you. You can usually tell 'em by the color of their skin.
Who actually was removed from the eligible voter list? It is widely known that Florida disallows convicted felons from voting. (This became state law in 1868, but was becoming ignored until 1998):
State lawmakers decided to weed out felons and other ineligible voters in 1998 after a Miami mayoral election was overturned because votes had been cast by the convicted and the dead. Election officials subsequently hired Database Technologies Inc. of Boca Raton to help with the daunting task of scanning the state's massive database of registered voters for felons and dead people. They paid DBT $3.3 million during the past two years.
But some voters were removed who shouldn't have been:
But a Palm Beach Post computer analysis has found at least 1,100 eligible voters wrongly purged from the rolls before last year's election -- the collateral damage from an aggressive and ill-conceived state plan to prevent felons from voting.
So we know there were mistakes made. But were black people discriminated against, or was this merely typical institutional mistakes? Was the list even used?: Skeptical of the list's accuracy, elections supervisors in 20 counties (including Palm Beach) ignored it altogether, thereby allowing thousands of felons to vote. Civil rights groups saw it as a deliberate attempt to disenfranchise black voters: Blacks accounted for 44 percent of those removed from the rolls, though they make up only about 11 percent of Florida's voters.
Hmm- it would seem that black people were discriminated against. But what do the real statistics say? :Blacks make up nearly 49 percent of the felons convicted in the state, according to the FDLE, so any purge of felons would include a disproportionate number of blacks
Wait a second- blacks were what? That's right: under-represented among convicted felons in Florida. There were less blacks removed than statistics say should have been. Also, check out the way this impacted black Republicans (from Dave Kopel):
When allowed to vote, felons vote approximately 69 percent Democratic, according to a study in the American Sociological Review. Therefore, if the thousands of felons in the non-purging 20 counties had been illegally allowed to vote, it is likely that Bush's statewide margin would have been substantially larger.
Hardly a case of discrimination, wouldn't you say? In fact, since most counties ignored the list, and the list actually under-represented blacks in the first place, and the list increased the probable Bush margin, it would appear that if Katherine Harris and Jeb Bush were doing any discriminating at all, it was against the white or Republican members of these counties.
Many more inacuarcies are exposed here:
http://fahrenheit_fact.blogspot.com
State lawmakers decided to weed out felons and other ineligible voters in 1998 after a Miami mayoral election was overturned because votes had been cast by the convicted and the dead. Election officials subsequently hired Database Technologies Inc. of Boca Raton to help with the daunting task of scanning the state's massive database of registered voters for felons and dead people. They paid DBT $3.3 million during the past two years.
But some voters were removed who shouldn't have been:
But a Palm Beach Post computer analysis has found at least 1,100 eligible voters wrongly purged from the rolls before last year's election -- the collateral damage from an aggressive and ill-conceived state plan to prevent felons from voting.
So we know there were mistakes made. But were black people discriminated against, or was this merely typical institutional mistakes? Was the list even used?: Skeptical of the list's accuracy, elections supervisors in 20 counties (including Palm Beach) ignored it altogether, thereby allowing thousands of felons to vote. Civil rights groups saw it as a deliberate attempt to disenfranchise black voters: Blacks accounted for 44 percent of those removed from the rolls, though they make up only about 11 percent of Florida's voters.
Hmm- it would seem that black people were discriminated against. But what do the real statistics say? :Blacks make up nearly 49 percent of the felons convicted in the state, according to the FDLE, so any purge of felons would include a disproportionate number of blacks
Wait a second- blacks were what? That's right: under-represented among convicted felons in Florida. There were less blacks removed than statistics say should have been. Also, check out the way this impacted black Republicans (from Dave Kopel):
When allowed to vote, felons vote approximately 69 percent Democratic, according to a study in the American Sociological Review. Therefore, if the thousands of felons in the non-purging 20 counties had been illegally allowed to vote, it is likely that Bush's statewide margin would have been substantially larger.
Hardly a case of discrimination, wouldn't you say? In fact, since most counties ignored the list, and the list actually under-represented blacks in the first place, and the list increased the probable Bush margin, it would appear that if Katherine Harris and Jeb Bush were doing any discriminating at all, it was against the white or Republican members of these counties.
Many more inacuarcies are exposed here:
http://fahrenheit_fact.blogspot.com
commentator